The marauding-animal thriller is a horror staple, reliably cropping up in late summer, as evidenced by Piranha (August 3, 1978), Cujo (August 12, 1983), Arachnophobia (July 18, 1990), Burning Bright (August 17, 2010), The Meg (August 10, 2018) and a host of other fauna-centric titles before, since and in between, representing a virtual Noah’s ark of scare-inducing species.
In that lineage falls Beast, the latest entry in the dog days canon of cautionary tales pitting man versus Mother Nature’s less well-be- haved progeny.
If the film is elevated by the great Idris Elba – playing an American widower on safari in South Africa with his two daughters who must face down a rogue lion bent on, for lack of a better word, revenge – it nevertheless falls squarely in the…